Lazarus Geiger (21 May 1829 – 29 August 1870) was a German-Jewish philosopher and
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
.
Life
He was born at
Frankfurt-on-Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian dialects, Hessian: , "Franks, Frank ford (crossing), ford on the Main (river), Main"), is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as o ...
, was destined to commerce, but soon gave himself up to scholarship and studied at
Marburg
Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approxima ...
,
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
and
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
. From 1861 till his sudden death in 1870 he was professor in the Jewish high school at Frankfurt. His chief aim was to prove that the evolution of human reason is closely bound up with that of language. He further maintained that the origin of the
Indo-Germanic
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
language is to be sought not in Asia but in central (Germany). He was a convinced opponent of
rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy ...
in religion.
Bibliography
Lazarus Geiger's chief work was ''Ursprung und Entwickelung der menschlichen Sprache und Vernunft'' (vol. i., Stuttgart, 1868), the principal results of which appeared in a more popular form as ''Der Ursprung der Sprache'' (Stuttgart, 1869 and 1878). The second volume of the former was published in an incomplete form (1872, 2nd ed. 1899) after his death by his brother Alfred Geiger.
Alfred Geiger also published a number of Lazarus Geiger's scattered papers as ''Zur Entwickelung der Menschheit'' (1871, and ed. 1878; Eng. trans. D. Asher, ''Hist. of the Development of the Human Race'', London, 1880).
Notes
References
*
Attribition
* – See towards the end of his uncle's article. Endnots:
**Keller, J. (1883). ''L. Geiger und der Kritik der Vernunft''. Wertheim.
**Keller, J. (1883). ''Der Ursprung der Vernunft''. Heidelberg.
**Peschier, E. (1871) ''L. Geiger, sein Leben und Denken''.
**Rosenthal, L.A. (1883). ''Lazarus Geiger: seine Lehre vom Ursprung d. Sprache und Vernunft und sein Leben''.Stuttgart.
Further reading
* – full translated text.
*
External links
*''Jewish Encyclopedia''
"Geiger, Lazarus (Eliezer Solomon)"by Isidore Singer & A. Geiger (1906).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geiger, Lazarus
German philosophers
German philologists
1829 births
1870 deaths
University of Marburg alumni
University of Bonn alumni
Heidelberg University alumni